Trajectories of children's intrusive grief and association with baseline family and child factors and long-term outcomes in young adulthood.

This study reports on the description of children's distinct trajectories of intrusive grief, baseline predictors of grief trajectories, and the association of grief trajectories with mental health, substantive abuse and disordered grief six and fifteen years following baseline assessment. The study uses data on 244 parentally-bereaved children ages 8-16 at baseline. Four distinct trajectories were identified using Growth Mixture Modeling over four waves of assessment across 6 years.

Cascade effects of a parenting-focused program for divorced families on three health-related outcomes in emerging adulthood.

Using data from a 15-year longitudinal follow-up of a randomized controlled trial of a parenting-focused preventive intervention for divorced families ( = 240) with children aged 9-12, the current study examined alternative cascading pathways through which the intervention led to improvements in offspring's perceived health problems, BMI, and cigarette smoking in emerging adulthood. It was hypothesized that the program would lead to improvements in these health-related outcomes during emerging adulthood through progressive associations between program-induced changes in parenting and offspring outcomes, including mental health problems, substance use, and competencies. Intervention-induced improvements in positive parenting at posttest led to improvements in mental health problems in late childhood/early adolescence, which led to lower levels of mental health and substance use problems as well as higher levels of competencies in adolescence, which led to improvements in the health-related outcomes.

Can Online Parent Education Meet the Needs of the Courts and Improve the Well-Being of Children? The Critical Roles of Goal, Program, and Evidence Alignment.

Parent education in family courts can significantly impact children's well-being after divorce if programs are (1) widely accessible, (2) acceptable to parents, (3) feasible to implement by courts, and (4) have evidence of effectiveness in improving key outcomes for children. In light of recently raised concerns about whether court-ordered/court-mandated parent education is justified; it is critical to identify effective parent education programs. Online parent education programs have the potential to be widely accessible, acceptable to parents and courts, and effectively promote children's well-being.

Preventing Mental Health Problems in Children After High Conflict Parental Separation/Divorce Study: An Optimization Randomized Controlled Trial Protocol.

Parental divorce is a childhood stressor that affects approximately 1.1 million children in the U.S.